Fred Kersley On Overtraining

My bone posting has run smack dab into some serious lack of understanding. Researching at the moment. Here's an interesting interview from Ross Staaden's book "Winning Trainers" with standardbred trainer Fred Kersely of Perth Australia (photo at left). There were four Fred Kersley's training standardbreds since the early 1900s, and this latest one won 15+ training titles by 1988 including riding and training in tens of thousands of races. Possibly Staaden's Kersley interviews were the highlight of his book.

As an interesting sidelight Kersley apparently was kicked in the face and seriously injured in 2006 when he was training gallopers. Unknown how that came out.

I've given a reply to Kersley as Tom Ivers might have have with the Ivers 3 x per day breezing in mind, and my own thoughts following the Kersley comments:

Undertraining and ovetraining
Ross Staaden:"Are there some things you could point to that you consider were errors you were making in your training early in your career? Overtraining or undertraining?

Fred Kersley: Undertraining. The attitude of the old-time trainer was that a horse should train conservatively and save his best for race day. As though some magical thing would happen and allow him to race twice as well as he really could. I grew up on that and it was a mistake, I think. That logic doesn't sit comfortably any more. Mind you, it might have worked for them because they carried an enormous worm burden in those days--all horses did--and they were difficult to maintain in good flesh, so it probably did help them a bit. Also I'm not saying they should be overtrained either. I don't think that works well. That was probably one of the attitudes I had to break out of.

RS: Did you find you oscillated, that you undertrained for a while, and then you'd gone the opposite way-you'd heard that heavy training was the go, and perhaps pushed a lot of horses to the point where they trained off?

FK: Yes, I went through that stage.

RS: Was that educational, though, in that you got to see what were the earlier signs of overtraining and undertraining, and so on?

FK: Yes, and you don't have to be very smart to work it out either. It's so bloody simple.

RS: What would you summarize as the signs of overtraining?

FK: Well, you bugger the horse up.

RS: Not a very specific term. In what sort of ways? It just won't eat or it's sore?

FK: I think understanding the horse-the first sign I think will come out of the tucker box. If he's starting to get too picky on his food, you feed him and he doesn't want to look at it, and you look at him and he's got a sort of dull look in his eye. It's really quite simple to see there's something wrong. He's so tired he doesn't want to eat and he can't run anyhow. Within a week of overtraining he goes to the races and he can't run. I mean, he tells you pretty quick if you're only going to listen. But some of the trainers go harder still and then the horse could be buggered up for life, and I've seen that.

RS: They show it first by what--fading in the races?

FK: Yes.

RS: And does that precede things like not eating up at home?

FK: Come in at about the same time.

RS: So, you'd hop in with the thermometer at that point?

FK: Well, I'm not even big on the thermometers because I don't get to that stage now, I see it happening and I start to handle it before I make him sick.

RS: Does it show much on the track before they get to that failure to eat?

FK: No. A horse can work brilliantly and come off the track, and then you find you've done too much. It is a very fine line we tread in overtraining. One of the other signs, I often think, is a horse that blows too much. I mean, if he was tired before he started , no wonder he's blowing. you've made him really really tired.

RS: And undertraining, what would you see happening there?

FK: Its probably better to undertrain to some extent. The horse is nice and fresh, he will want to run a little bit, he can go okay. He's not going to run at his best, but he's going to make a pretty good effort at it. You're probably setting up some shin soreness factors and that type of thing, though it's going to take a little while to surface. But, I still think, if you're going to make a mistake, you may as well undertrain because it's easier to go on to a higher level of fitness than to pick up something that's stressed.

RS: The racing is eventually going to bring it to some level of fitness.

FK: Sure. All of your logic ought to be that you stay just this side of where you're heading. Because if you get to the other side of where you've heading, it's no good. No good for anyone.

Iver's posthumous reply: Kersley, god love him, merely confuses the killing of gut bacteria with overtraining. You avoid this by a combo of quick cool down of the horse post workout--i.e. 1. when you leave the track take the shortest route to the nearest water spiggot, quickly remove tack and hose horse, or better yet, wet him down while still on the track. 2. administer various pro-biotics to restore gut bacteria asap post race.

Me: I think Ivers correctly interprets Kersley's remarks, but will observe that at times even with due diligence gut bacteria die and you get a dull eyed off-feed horse. Some horses seem more susceptible than others. As to overtraining generally note our human Olympic teams where to be a serious competitor requires training virtually to become a full time job. May we reach in equine training a day when competition is so fierce for gallopers (as opposed to Kersley's standardbreds), that trainers to compete indeed will start reaching that fine line of true animal abusing overtraining? While you can see this coming, I'm wondering if there are limits to the equine skeleton that will stop us before we reach the point.

Training:
Wed: 2/25 Spring in KC this week, and it looks as if the coming rain will miss us. Rod: More accelerations. 4 x 2f with 3f walk trot between. Interesting this post on overtraining since the last heat today was done under protest (by the horse). But he reached :16s for a few strides here and there. Art was walked 2f under tack though is still a little sore.